Mumbai-basedCreditVidya is unlike any other fintech startup. The major differentiator for CreditVidya is their proprietary technology platform Insights that provides customer-focused insights to the 10-plus lenders the company works with. The upside is significantly reduced cost of underwriting, effectively up selling products and getting faster approval ratings.

The founder duo, Abhishek Agarwal and Rajiv Raj have a robust modus operandi of building trusted credit scores with models based on customer segmentation.“When you add more and more data points, the predictive power increases.Say for example, we have a customer who is new to the bank and new to credit score as well, we can integrate alternate data and transactional data to give a trusted score,” shares Abhishek Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of CreditVidya. Last year, the startup grabbed headlines for its $2M funding from Kalaari Capital.

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CreditVidya claims to have one of the most comprehensive data sources for India and their models are based on customer segmentation, shares Agarwal. In fact, so robust is their tech platform that fintech startups — “guys who predominantly own their own balance sheet and are in the customer acquisition business” want to use CreditVidya’s models.

Fraud Mitigation with Email API

With an increased emphasis on security and fraud mitigation, Agarwal has “built products that bolster authentication and removes manual intervention” – Email Fraud API and Field Investigation Digital services. Fullerton, a leading non-banking financial company has teamed up with CreditVidya for the data-based authentication and verification services that removes manual intervention and improves turnaround time, thereby adding to the customer experience. “Our Email API offers multiple checks that go beyond the scene, such as checking domain name and when it was registered,” he says.

The platform runs automated assessments of details submitted and validates the applications by combining data from eight discrete sources

Inconsistencies in the data are highlighted through a customized rule engine, allowing the lender to safely process more loan applications at lower cost

Another alternative data-based tool — Field Investigation Digital helps further checks the veracity of details submitted by a customer. This data tool uses an AI-based profiling algorithm to cross-check details such as names, addresses, birth data and more using behavioral and transactional data. It generates a stability score to fast track application process and reduce the loan disbursal process. “Traditionally, you have a long loan disbursal process where field checks are required before you give out loans. Our value proposition here is that we are significantly reducing cost and providing a high degree of accuracy to the lender,” says Agarwal, who believes as India readies for a paperless economy, the digital system should be strong enough to catch fraud.

Meet the brains behind CreditVidya

The company founded in 2013 has observed 400% YoY growth in FY 2015-6 and became cash flow positive in the second year of operations. At the helm are co-founders Agarwal and Raj who have steered the startup to become one of the most successful fintech companies around the block. The duo met while working atExperian, a leader in analytics and credit information.

Agarwal started his career in New York working as an analyst with a leading inter-firm dealer brokerage and helped scale up various startups before founding CreditVidya. He holds dual degree in Computer Science and Math backed by an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management and London Business School. Meanwhile, Raj, co-founder and Director is one of the founding members of CIBIL and has 20-plus years in retail banking with stints in HDFC Bank, Citibank and Canara Bank among others.

The company’s Data Lab is the centre of R&D, backed by a 50-plus staff that boasts of IIT alumni and statisticians. The startup, largely comprises engineers and statisticians, has a 3-4 step hiring process depending on the credentials of the applicant. “If it’s an engineer, he/she has to write a code for us. And if it’s a data scientist, the applicant has to demonstrate their capacity of understanding data and build sample models, which by the way people have already done during interviews,” says Agarwal, whose company boasts of a strong data engineering team.

CreditVidya Funding from Kalaari Capital

Last year, the founders were in the news for raising $2 million from Kalaari Capital as part of their Series A funding. When asked how the funding will be utilized, Agarwal said, “The funding will be used for improving our technology stack, building algorithms and our data science team”.

On the customer front, Agarwal revealed the company has signed up two insurance companies and talks are on about closing an agreement with a leading e-commerce firm while an e-wallet company has also evinced an interest.

The company has already partnered with 10+ lenders such as Bajaj Finserv, Shriram Capital and Tata Capital among others.

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Richa Bhatia is a seasoned journalist with six-years experience in reportage and news coverage and has had stints at Times of India and The Indian Express. She is an avid reader, mum to a feisty two-year-old and loves writing about the next-gen technology that is shaping our world.